Author: Jason Waeber
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I just bumped into this comic since the previous Conversations, and I was struck by how much Christian literature falls in precisely this camp. As I’m looking into doing a church plant, I read quite a bit of literature about church planting and much of it is essentially summarized by, “I have a big church, here’s how you can get a big church too.” I realize that’s crassly cynical, but sometimes I think we could do with a bit more cynicism about the literature we consume in our own circles. Continue reading

He was worth a hundred of his fellows who, as princes of the church, occupy easy places and play their church politics and trim their sails to every wind, who in their smug observance of the convictions of life and religion offend all honest and searching spirits. No forthright mind can live among them, neither the honest skeptic nor the honest dogmatist.Pearl S. Buck

Last week I posted a rather strong critique of the Truth’s Table podcast entitled “Gender Apartheid.” Those who have followed this blog know that I subsequently took the post down because of charges of racism that were being leveled against me. Yes, I chickened out. Those charges were wicked and untrue.

Concern is mounting among evangelicals that Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s policy arm, could lose his job following months of backlash over his critiques of President Trump and religious leaders who publicly supported the Republican candidate. Any such move could be explosive for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which has been divided over politics, theology and, perhaps most starkly, race.Sarah Pulliam Bailey

When people hear, “Head for the hills,” they think, you know, to light out for the mountains and build a compound and sit there and wait for the end. I don’t think we’re called to that. I know I’m not called to that; most people aren’t called to that…. It means as lay Christians, we have to build some kind of walls to separate ourselves from the world so that we can continue to go out into the world and minister to people and be who Christ asked us to be.Rod Dreher

Coral and Creation Science – This isn’t as polemic as some of the stuff Sheologians puts out, but I just really enjoyed it as a fairly rambling and compelling exploration of some of the rebuttals creation science makes to the mainstream scientific establishment. I think we tend to have the attitude that scientists have a fundamentally different type of knowledge than the rest of us. The reality, however, is that scientists are every inch as susceptible to the pressures of their own worldview and, frequently, are even more blind to the effect those pressures have on their perception of the facts. Continue reading

When Presbyterians and Baptists and free church evangelicals start attending Ash Wednesday services and observing Lent, one can only conclude that they have either been poorly instructed in the theology or the history of their own traditions, or that they have no theology and history. Or maybe they are simply exhibiting the attitude of the world around: They consume the bits and pieces which catch their attention in any tradition they find appealing, while eschewing the broader structure, demands and discipline which belonging to an historically rooted confessional community requires. Indeed, it is ironic that a season designed for self-denial is so often a symbol of this present age’s ingrained consumerism.Carl Trueman

The reality that a great deal of professing Calvinists are graceless to those around them – which is one that I am not alone in noticing – bears witness that a Calvinism that is inch deep is no better than no Calvinism at all.JD Hall

If you are primarily acquainted with Calvinism through the internet, this probably surprised you not at all, but I am increasingly Continue reading

Recovering Friendship – This podcast rambles over quite a few topics related to counseling, but the one which really jumped out to me was the importance of figuring out how we do friendship and community in the church. If the appeal Continue reading